Flash drive real capacity

[Buranelli]

Hi there!

Can you develop a USB version of the "HDD Capacity Restore Tool"?

Since all world is getting tired of China fake/hacked flash drives who shows a greater memory capacity than they realy have, this is a must have software!

I guess that this kind of modification is software based and then can easily (ok. not so easily...) undone by a team of hardware experts like you guys.

Forgive my poor english, actualy I am brazilian.

Thanks everybody!

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

The problem with fake/china hacked flash drives is that they really use small capacity memory chips and change the drive to look like if the capacity is bigger.
A little bit like if you pick a 128 MB memory chip and put inside an hacked device that re-uses that chip over and over again to "make believe" that the total capacity is, for instance, 8GB.
When the user is writting more than the true capacity, the drive will "loop" to re-write the chip, meaning that if you try to write 1GB of data on a faked 8GB pen drive and the true memory chip is only 128MB, you will end up only with 128MB of data.
You can't turn a fake 8GB pen intro a true 8GB pen with software at all, because you can't store more data then the true memory chip can hold. What you can do is in some cases by the use of vendor-specific software to re-use a fake pen drive by forcing it to re-set to the true capacity. If the pen drive have a 128MB chip and it's advertised/faked to look like 8GB, you can't have a "restore" to 8GB but in certain cases you can have it back as a 128MB.
Of course that it's not advisable. You should just get a new not-faked pen drive, because people who do those fake/hacked drives will use the cheap memory chip/components that they can, and that can mean defective memory chips or over-used (remember that with flash you will have a limit of writes).
If you want to check the true capacity of a pen drive and to test it to verify the true amount of data it can hold, and if the data got damaged or not on the process, use the tool h2testw.
To restore a fake pen drive to the original size you will have to identify the components of the pen and use specific tool for those controllers.

Sir ,
One Great Website -> http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/

[code_slave]

"The problem with fake/china hacked flash drives is that they really use small capacity memory chips and change the drive to look like if the capacity is bigger."
Not always......, massive quantities are semi-defective genuine silicon, complete with original manufacturers markings.



And if you want to know where the 'criminals' hang out........

http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=44466

<edit> oh and i forgot this ..........
http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=959



This is WHY they like the "chipsbank" and MXTronics controllers so much, because a little birdy tells me that both have been "tagged" by certain manufacturers for allowing situations where the Nand-Flash chips can be taken out of spec via custom code in the controllers, unfortunately the info is covered by an NDA , but it makes interesting reading.

Bottom line:

1. Do not buy cheap USB stick devices even if they are branded.
2. Don't buy this stuff from a China supplier unless it is well known (Nettec)

As for finding out the "true" size , this can only be provided by the Nand-Flash ID data , coupled with the manufacturers Bad Block Maps.

I have some interesting cases of 16GB chips, that will test fine at 16GB, but actually loose data after 3 days
these are raw chips, not interrogated via controllers.

Then there are the real interesting cases of semi-OTP parts!!! , they will program ONCE from fresh, but any re-write will corrupt random data. (again this is covered by an NDA, but i have seen copies floating on the internet)

[Buranelli]

The problem with fake/china hacked flash drives is that they really use small capacity memory chips and change the drive to look like if the capacity is bigger.
A little bit like if you pick a 128 MB memory chip and put inside an hacked device that re-uses that chip over and over again to "make believe" that the total capacity is, for instance, 8GB.
When the user is writting more than the true capacity, the drive will "loop" to re-write the chip, meaning that if you try to write 1GB of data on a faked 8GB pen drive and the true memory chip is only 128MB, you will end up only with 128MB of data.
You can't turn a fake 8GB pen intro a true 8GB pen with software at all, because you can't store more data then the true memory chip can hold. What you can do is in some cases by the use of vendor-specific software to re-use a fake pen drive by forcing it to re-set to the true capacity. If the pen drive have a 128MB chip and it's advertised/faked to look like 8GB, you can't have a "restore" to 8GB but in certain cases you can have it back as a 128MB.
Of course that it's not advisable. You should just get a new not-faked pen drive, because people who do those fake/hacked drives will use the cheap memory chip/components that they can, and that can mean defective memory chips or over-used (remember that with flash you will have a limit of writes).
If you want to check the true capacity of a pen drive and to test it to verify the true amount of data it can hold, and if the data got damaged or not on the process, use the tool h2testw.
To restore a fake pen drive to the original size you will have to identify the components of the pen and use specific tool for those controllers.

I think you misunderstood me. When I say to restore the flash drive real capacity I mean set his controlers to see him like a 1gb, 2gb, etc flash drive. Not to "force" him to become a true 8gb, 16gb, etc.
I end up with a fake 8gb USB flash drive and a fake 2gb microSD Memory Card these couple days and then I realize that's almost impossible to "fix" them, even using thousands of softwares and tutorials.
I know that they will never have 8gb and 2gb capacity, but with his controlers hacked they are useless! That's why I post his message, 'cause you maybe be able to develop a generic tool that fix his controlers.

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

"The problem with fake/china hacked flash drives is that they really use small capacity memory chips and change the drive to look like if the capacity is bigger."
Not always......, massive quantities are semi-defective genuine silicon, complete with original manufacturers markings.



And if you want to know where the 'criminals' hang out........

http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=44466

<edit> oh and i forgot this ..........
http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=959



This is WHY they like the "chipsbank" and MXTronics controllers so much, because a little birdy tells me that both have been "tagged" by certain manufacturers for allowing situations where the Nand-Flash chips can be taken out of spec via custom code in the controllers, unfortunately the info is covered by an NDA , but it makes interesting reading.

Bottom line:

1. Do not buy cheap USB stick devices even if they are branded.
2. Don't buy this stuff from a China supplier unless it is well known (Nettec)

As for finding out the "true" size , this can only be provided by the Nand-Flash ID data , coupled with the manufacturers Bad Block Maps.

I have some interesting cases of 16GB chips, that will test fine at 16GB, but actually loose data after 3 days
these are raw chips, not interrogated via controllers.

Then there are the real interesting cases of semi-OTP parts!!! , they will program ONCE from fresh, but any re-write will corrupt random data. (again this is covered by an NDA, but i have seen copies floating on the internet)

Boss ,
Thanks for The Links Interesting Read .

[Buranelli]

So it seems like most of fake flash drives are junk...
Am I right?

[code_slave]

Nope , i did not misunderstand you.

My point is that in many cases they do not have a "real capacity"

The "real capacity" of the nand-flash chip can only be obtained from:

Nand-Flash ID + Manufacturers Bad Block markings+ manufacturers test vectors.

Depending on this data , these devices can range from 0gb, with multiple command defects on the Nand-Flash chips then you have additional problems related to low cost defective controller.

If you mean you want to recover the real storage based on some fantasy about what the chip should contain related to what you paid for it......., then i'm sorry it is not going to happen.

I can possibly supply a manufacturers utility to allow you to fool about but it is not going to correct it.
I need to know the integral controller number, but ultimately you would be playing with fire.

For the cost related to analyzing the Nand-Flash chip, you may as well throw the chip away and solder a good one in its place.

An example to give you an "idea" of what you are up against:

Attachments

[Buranelli]

Thanks, code_slave.

There are some little softwares that can tell you the real capacity of you flash device. I used the H2TESTW, and it told me that my 16gb flash device is actualy a 4gb one.

I am sure that the cost of sending his flash drive back to it's seller or to some hdd pro to analyze his NAND-chip is far more expensive than buy a new one. I just wanted to know if there were some way to fix this damn thing...
And by fix it I mean to make my computer to see him like a 4g flash drive.

But if this is almost impossible then I'll throw it away.

Thanks anyway!

[code_slave]

N.P
I would not throw it away, things like this can come in useful.

Personally I would be suspicious of any software that claims it can tell you the real size, even if it talks directly to the engineering code in the controller.
Ultimately the controller reports what it is programmed to report.

It is a beautiful subject area to read up and become familiar with ,there is still so much that is unknown in this area of forensic recovery.

[Buranelli]

I guess that that H2TESTW software work in a very simple way. He makes thousands of copies of a single archive with exactly 1024kb until the flash device memory is filled, and then read each one of those archives.
After that he's able to determine how many kbytes where lost on the recording process.

Take a look at the screenshot below to see a report of a fake 16gb flash drive.


It's easy to see that this fake 16bg flash device truly had 1gb of memory capacity.

And I'll love to take a look at that manufacturer utility. Can you send it to my email?

[code_slave]

I would need the number off the controller to send the correct manufacturing util.